to a small handful of graduate students in my (English) department,

When I was a graduate student I did some dumb things. Like that email complaining about an administrator that I accidentally sent to the administrator. Oops! And a couple of snotty, haughty letters about hiring issues wherein I, who had not yet stepped foot on the job market, pretended I knew what I was talking about. Cringe.

I'm embarrassed about these now and am grateful that I was in a department where such mis-steps could be forgiven. This week I have had cause to remember those dumb things in part because a group of graduate students here has been acting in a manner that I find quite appalling. (None of these graduate students, for the record, is in my own field, though the controversy is swirling around that field.)

The controversy is about changes being implemented in the rhetoric program. I have no problem with people raising concerns--and any drastic change is going to draw attention, even pushback--but the manner with which concerns have gotten raised is what really bothers me. This department prides itself on a supportive environment for graduate students; what is more, faculty political views range pretty much from liberal to radical, and many colleagues would rather have their books wither at the hands of angry peer reviews than be deemed unsympathetic to graduate students.

For my part, though, that goodwill has been eroded after the behavior I have witnessed and heard about this week. The behavior runs the gamut from bullying other graduate students who offer alternative viewpoints or--worse--reducing them to tears with facebook tirades, to circulating anonymous biased surveys, to writing nasty, disrespectful letters of protest, to undermining departmental protocols for raising concerns, to trying to pit faculty members against each other. All because of some curricular reform that is in my view much needed and still very much in the works.

Graduate students, I urge you to learn collegiality early on. You are professionals, and professionals treat each other with respect, not derisive dismissal. I am deeply saddened about the behavior around here, and in response to that behavior I maybe haven't been the model of collegiality myself, in part because I felt like some rears needed some serious kicking. While the department is fortunate to have leaders who have stepped in to clear up the confusion and paranoia, I fear lasting damage has been done, and it spreads across your ranks (the graduate ranks) like a spilled bottle of toxins.

People, it's really not worth it. Try stepping outside of your own narrow interests to see a broader institutional picture, including (gasp!) the people who take these classes. Write your dissertations, teach your classes, and work on being collegial and navigating differences with respect. It will be good practice, and your future colleagues will be grateful.

sincerely yours,
debbie

Comments

[Collin]

Amen.

I've been on all sides of these kind of dust-ups, and the ones I regret most invariably are the ones that involved the kinds of bad behavior you describe here, D, even when I was on the "collegial" side of things. Nobody wins.

cgb

[mindy]

hmmm. this post makes me think of Joshie's ongoing discussion of the petulant demand and the generational issue where that gets translated into the graduate student population...

[Z]

One thing I *don't* miss about my old institution.

[Nels P. Highberg]

Having started watching this play out, am I wrong to point out that some of us are going to be doing job searches in this field in the near future and that we might look at applications from this program a bit differently? And shouldn't they know this and take it into account? I'm not saying an application from UI will go to the bottom of the pile, but some might go to google and Facebook and see what role applicants played in this. And it might even lead to an interview question, "After hearing about what happened in your program, what's your perspective on the issues raised?"

[Jeff]

Ah. This story *sounds* so familiar. I've wanted to (or actually have said) such things here as well.

[dhawhee]

Nels,I ought to say that this is a small handful of people, and who knows if they will ever finish their dissertations if they keep spending their energies here? Our best--including all of our writing studies/rhetoric--students have kept their heads down and been as horrified as I have.

[7deadlycyns]

Ah yes, sometimes graduate students (and some faculty, for that matter) seem to find out about the concept of academic freedom or self-governance or whatever and then think that this gives them the right to do whatever the heck they want, regardless of what anybody else thinks. Yet then the process moves from mere misunderstanding to sheer irony because, in my experience, these same people often end up bullying everyone else, concluding that clearly whatever insights they've come to thanks to the wonders of academic freedom MUST also be the right thing for all. I keep wanting to quote The Princess Bride and say, "Academic Freedom: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[anon]

sounds to me like you want to sabotage the future of your grad students. huh.

[dhawhee]

quite the contrary, anon. quite the contrary.

[anon]

Well then why would you publish this open letter to "graduate students in my (English) department" regarding this "appalling" behavior? And with no evidence of the behavior? You speak of teaching collegiality -- is this blog, critiquing graduate students as a group collegial? I'm doubtful that such a public letter is the best way to go about mentoring them -- which is your job, right?

[JHS]

I would not presume to speak for anyone else, but it would seem the evidence would be more personally damning by describing the bad behavior than this appropriately vague letter. This approach both seeks to redirect behavior which would undermine collegiality and does so in a manner that keeps dirty laundry properly hampered, allowing for future collegial relations. As for mentorship, the idea that it should not involve criticism, public or otherwise, is dubious at best. A mentor who doesn't smack you upside the head (usu. figuratively) when you are doing something potentially stupid isn't of much value as a mentor.

[inc.]

I happened to come across this blog while following a link... I am rather disappointed in the tone and vindictive nature of this post. As you suggest, the English dep. needs a recommittment to collegiality at this moment. I think we should work together to understand why grad students and adjuncts (who do not receive any measure of support from tenure-track faculty from what I've seen) are concerned about the administrative decision to restructure the classes they teach. Inviting grad students, adjuncts and tenure-track folks (who should be teaching these classes as well) to brainstorm together about the nature of composition courses would be more useful than announcing that it has already been decided that there needs to be a change. The situation has been poorly handled all around. Reasserting hierarchies through a one sided definition of mentorship and collegiality does not help. Mentors, administrators, adjuncts, grads and students need to be committed to learning from each other rather than the behavior you describe above. Insinuating that instructors do not have their students in mind when critiquing the proposed changes contributes to the problem....

[dhawhee]

just to be clear: at issue is not THAT people raised critiques, but HOW the responses to the proposed changes manifest with such vitriol and such entitlement, and were so ill informed. raising the specter of academic freedom was unreasonable and misguided, but the most abhorrent part, for me, was the way a small handful of graduate students treated other graduate students. that is what i find sad about this situation.

i stand by everything i say in this open letter and have modified my salutation. the important point is that people capable of raising issues in a collegial and reasonable way are not part of the group I am exasperated with. there is nothing vindictive here, but there is a harshness that I fully intend. faculty who tippy-toe around graduate students for fear of being seen as "uncool" are neither respecting them nor are they doing them any favors. my real hope is that in the future people--and not just people in this department--will stop and think about the *manner* in which they raise issues before they dismiss, deride, and/or launch full-scale attacks on other students, faculty members, or areas of expertise.

all this said, i couldn't agree with inc. more, and i would add that the department's administrators have been very responsive to the criticisms. i would love it if people could redirect all this energy into reimagining rhetoric 105, and asking themselves questions about learning outcomes, pedagogical approaches, and useful teaching texts.

[anonymous Americanist]

Please consider writing a more positive follow-up post that addresses this broader institutional picture and that goes beyond the context of this particular incident. Humanities faculty—tenure and non-tenure track—and graduate students should recognize the mutual interdependence of their labor for the continued existence of the whole. They should work together against aggressive attempts to further erode the humanities in the coming years of economic crisis. Resistance to such attempts should come vigorously from faculty as well as graduate students, who have continually shown themselves capable of collective action. Grad students should not simply put their heads down and work on their dissertations while the material conditions that enable that work are being threatened (I know you know this, but some of the readers' comments imply otherwise). Your post (and some of the comments that follow it) seems to suggest that UIUC English graduate students are too ignorant to recognize (and theorize) their place in the institution (I realize you do qualify your statements and the change in title helps, but, to me, your post still has the impact of a generalization). Many of the GEO’s most active members come from this English department. They were the ones who successfully mobilized against the University’s threats to cut tuition waivers for 25% appointments (and maybe beyond that if the GEO hadn’t pushed back). They were the ones who mobilized against changes to the University’s ethics policy, which were a clear threat to *academic freedom* (in the actual sense of the term). They were the ones who rallied against the University’s attempt to cut funding for an “easy target”: women’s health services at McKinley. None of this would have been possible if UIUC English graduate students hadn’t worked with other departments in “navigating differences with respect.” If anything, they have shown themselves to be a model in that area. In short, I’d like to read your thoughts on why exactly collegiality and mutual support are so very important in this particular time; it’s a value that actually serves a larger purpose than professionalism for its own sake.

[dhawhee]

woooo! Anonymous Americanist. Thanks. You hit on something that has bothered me in this whole thing and your comment got me all fired up in a very good way.

I really believe that the mechanisms of collective action, which are SO IMPORTANT and so vital to our department's leadership on campus and in the community, may have been misappropriated in this instance. As a G.E.O activist graduate student in another department put it to me, "this doesn't seem like the best use of coalitional energies."

I agree too that people should care about their working conditions, but I in fact do not think that a flexible but shared curriculum counts as a working condition in a union sense. (This is why G.E.O. does not have jurisdiction over things like course content.) From the moment this became a hot-button issue in our department, I have noticed that the discourse around rhet 105 and union discourse were getting all mixed up, and that bothered me. Faculty were being approached and lobbied *as if* this were a union issue, and being good union supporters, they seemed to jump to the side of those objecting to the changes. All without anyone knowing WTF the proposed changes were. Anyway, I am of the mind that it is rather a curricular issue and ought to be deliberated as such. OR maybe course content is somewhere in the middle--between a working condition and a curricular matter--and that's actually an interesting debate that I could imagine having sometime if people weren't shouting about academic freedom and acting as if they know everything, as if there is a good side and an evil side. This issue is not that clear cut.

But arguing that control over course content is some sort of individual right that an instructor has (as people were doing when this whole thing blew up) risks detracting from vital matters of working conditions such as course loads, pay, insurance coverage, tuition waivers, etc. Most general education courses on this campus and other peer campuses have a good deal more continuity in assignments, theme, and even course texts. And there are very sound pedagogical reasons based on learning outcomes for this continuity.

In any case, I think at this point such deliberations ARE beginning to happen on a curricular and pedagogical level rather than on a rights-based level, and that makes me VERY happy. So yeah, I will consider another post, thanks for that. My hope is that in a few weeks, I'll have some positive examples to share of people working productively together.

[Probably not anonymous]

Debbie,

A colleague drew my attention to this blog post, and since I appear to be one of the handful, I think a response is in order. Your letter, while effective in its apparent intentions, includes several inaccurate and misleading statements, while offering no evidence. My response will address some of the comments I find most inappropriate and/or false.

I will start with the accusations of specific behavior:

1) Bullying/reducing students to tears. From the moment graduate students learned more fully about the proposed changes, many were concerned–far more than a small handful. Many of us who were concerned began to discuss the changes, what we didn’t like about them, and how best to go about making our voices heard (since one of the major concerns was that they weren’t). Needless to say, not everyone agreed. Some of that disagreement was worded strongly, but I didn’t see any bullying. There have been times in the last week where I’ve wanted to cry (or perhaps just sleep until the whole thing blows over), but “reducing [graduate students] to tears with facebook tirades,” may say more about those reduced than the comments that reduced them. Emotions were high, but a productive dialogue continued (in spite of or because of) the tears.

2) Circulating anonymous surveys. One of the key problems with your letter is the reduction of the large number of frustrated graduate students to a handful of mean-spirited graduate students. As I mentioned above, we didn’t agree about a) the problems with the program as it had been explained or b) how best to go about addressing/expressing our concerns. I am confident that each graduate student did what they felt was right. Some sent surveys, some talked to faculty, some circulated petitions. To hint that the unrest in the department was the result of a small handful of plotters, maniacally planning ways to harass departmental leadership, is inaccurate and insulting. Those who disagreed about principals and tactics were acting simultaneously, independent of each other. If you take issue with the collective weight of these actions, then you are upset with a wide swath of graduate students, including those whom your letter acquits.

3) Writing nasty, disrespectful letters of protest. I’m not sure what you are referring to here. Maybe you are referring to the large number of graduate students who wrote letters of concern to the department head? I know there were a lot of letters and I didn’t read them (nor did I write any of them): I find it hard to imagine they were “nasty” or “disrespectful” as a whole and I hope you will recognize them as legitimate articulations. When did writing a letter become anti-collegial?

4) Undermining departmental protocol for raising concerns. Again, not exactly sure what this one means. You might consider explaining these protocols, but I fail to see how contacting professors in leadership positions (which happened) is a bad thing. Graduate students respect faculty, we are interested to know their thoughts, and contacting people like the Director of Graduate Studies, the Department Head, and members of the committee that advises the department head, seems like a reasonable course of action for those who do not sit on important committees. In other words, are you willing to chastise graduate students for talking to people?

5) Trying to pit faculty members against each other. I don’t know everything that happened in the last week, but I probably know as much as anyone about what graduate students did, and I judge this accusation as unequivocally false. You have offered no evidence to support any of your claims, but in many ways I find this accusation the most offensive, which makes its baselessness stand out. Seeking out opinions from those we respect, distributing what little knowledge we have about the changes (because many faculty knew nothing about them), letting leaders in our department know we are concerned....these “pit faculty against each other?” Hardly. Your position is unfounded and presumptive. In addition, it paints an unflattering image of combative and ignorant faculty who be polarized by the evolving concerns of their graduate students.

Beyond your overt accusations, you also make other troubling statements. In particular, your final paragraph you ask us to step “outside of [our] own narrow interests to see a broader institutional picture, including (gasp!) the people who take these classes.” For one, some of us resisted the original explanation of these changes on grounds of academic freedom, which is an institution-wide issue. Put simply, I argue that overreaching curricular constraints restrict academic freedom, which harms teachers and their students. You may disagree, but it is arrogant and misguided to imagine that you have a monopoly on the big picture. Some of the most contentious moments between graduate students were discussions about the graduate students who aren’t here yet, those who can’t express their opinions on the new program. I’m concerned about those students. Further, any claim that graduate students aren’t concerned with the students they teach betrays either a willing misrepresentation of recent events or a woeful ignorance of how committed we are to being good teachers. This point (and the next) make me angrier than anything else in your letter, because I’m not the only person in the “handful.” You don’t even know who you are talking about, so how dare you call them self-centered. They are damn good teachers who want what is best for their students. Disagreeing with you about how to assure the best for our students in no way justifies your accusations of narrow-mindedness and self-interest. Try talking to some of these people.

Also, your response to Nels is absurd: “Our best--including all of our writing studies/rhetoric--students have kept their heads down and been as horrified as I have.” Apparently you define the department’s “best” students by how closely they match your sensibilities. You know nothing about the students you are attacking and I sincerely doubt you would be in a position to judge what students are “best” even if you did. Statements like this reveal that your desire is not to encourage collegiality, but to degrade. Students from all disciplines in our department were concerned about these changes (have you considered that students in Writing Studies might be less vocal because they fear repercussions?–a fear that seems reasonable in light of your open letter) and your efforts to denigrate those who were actively expressing concern appears petty, at best. Our efforts no more keep us from writing our dissertations than you writing a blog keeps you from doing your job. Again, consider meeting some of the people you insult.

Finally, you claim that your letter is designed to encourage collegiality. I believe in collegiality, but I will not defer to your definition of it. Collegiality does not preclude disagreement, nor eliminate unethical behavior. Your definition of collegiality prohibits open and honest conversation, but allows for disingenuous “open letters” that publicly berate graduate students in your own department. If that’s collegiality, then I’m not sure I want it: I’ll take dialogue, disagreement, and even a few tears over that.

[Cary Nelson]

Much of what "probably not anonymous" says seems to me accurate. I only encountered grad students voicing legitimate concerns in a rational and productive manner. Certainly all liked the idea of a common e-book as a way to share teaching ideas, whereas the restrictions on essay topics was difficult to understand. The relationship between institutional (or departmental) and individual academic freedom is complex, but merits discussion and negotiation. A broad brush condemnation of people with differing views as unprofessional and immature in this case amounts to a self-indictment.
Cary Nelson

[P]

Probably not anonymous - your #2 is exactly the point raised in this blog post - which is a criticism of particular methods of response to planned curriculum changes that mobilized disciplinary divisions to prevent changes to a course. The post does not claim that the unrest in the department was only a small cadre of maniacal students - rather, it argues that in the larger context of unrest, some graduate students bullied others as a method of gaining change. I don't see how there's a defense of that.

You also appear to generalize the attitude of writing studies students - I'm sure that various writing studies students had various reactions, and I am equally sure that some writing studies students, while objecting to particular aspects of the proposed changes, supported the (shocking and horrifying) attempt to enforce a rhetoric curriculum within a rhetoric course, and advocated for working with faculty - or at least talking directly to the faculty responsible for the changes - as a means of expressing concern. It was these students that were - yes, bullied - on the facebook and elsewhere, and mocked for their idea that if there was a problem with the actions of a professor's proposed changes, that this professor should be asked if further modifications could be made.

The post was also a critique of the deployment of "academic freedom" in a way that debbie didn't agree with. Of course people have different conceptions of academic freedom - I don't see how it is illegitimate to a. criticize methods of dissent that foreclose deliberation and b. criticize the particular focus on proposed changes to a rhetoric course. Graduate students mobilizing against threats to their employment is an excellent thing. Graduate students spending that energy mobilizing in this manner (again, no one here is saying that there were not objectionable elements in the proposed changes to Rhetoric 105) is quite another. It is deeply frustrating to teach students who have taken Rhetoric 105 and who apparently have had no instruction in rhetoric and argumentation - the attempt to change this is an admirable one.

Also, the institutional makeup of this course is relevant to notions of academic freedom. I can't of course speak to you, but I would be very surprised if, one day when you teach a course that hires TA's, you don't seek to have control over the content that those TA's teach. A professor instructing her TA to impart particular skills with particular assignments with particular readings in a discussion section is NOT an issue of academic freedom - and neither is a course director doing the same thing. To call this an issue of academic freedom takes away from more pressing and salient concerns. A reference to undergraduates is not disengenuous either - this is not analogous to the University's reprehensible trend of attempting to pit undergraduates and graduates against each other, nor does it imply that graduate students don't care about their undergraduates. Rather, it suggests that the total unwillingness to countenance a change in curriculum in a course which, again, graduate students are instructors under the aegis of a course director - a change which arguably - I will make and stand by this argument - stands to benefit the students in Rhetoric 105 - is irresponsible at best and selfish at worst.

I agree - as did many students - that requiring all materials to be taught by the course to be submitted within a limited timeframe is problematic. Many students who found this to be problematic suggested making this criticism to those involved in the decision - they were denounced as "sellouts." I do not agree that it is problematic to require graduate students who are hired to teach a rhetoric course to teach certain major assignments as a means of insuring that all undergraduates in the course are given the basic skills in argumentation and policy research that the course is designed to provide. 'We should be able to teach whatever curriculum we want in any setting' is not a call to academic freedom.

[Z]

This issue seems to me so transparently not one on which to take a stand about academic freedom. For one thing, graduate students have a fairly limited measure of academic freedom: they are teaching under an apprenticeship; they must produce particular kinds of writing at particular moments; they are liable to being kicked out of the program if they do not perform these tasks in the way the faculty deems fit. When you're teaching a class under the direction of a faculty member, you cannot claim academic freedom when you are told what to teach and how, just as you cannot claim academic freedom if you would rather write a 5-page paper rather than a 20-page paper for a seminar. Secondly, I just can't imagine getting so worked up over the curriculum for freshman comp in one's graduate program. Perhaps it's a terrible curriculum, perhaps it's a good one, I don't know. But whether it's terrible or good has little to do with how standardized it is, since these are essentially all "sections" of the same course. They ought to be somewhat standardized or else they ought not to be taught under the same course number. As a graduate student, one teaches the courses one has to teach, and does the best one can with them. Of course graduate students should make their opinions about curriculum known, but curriculum is definitely not a "working condition" for graduate students, nor should it be: the academic freedom involved in the curriculum is that of the faculty, not the graduate students (and even there it's not absolute). When I taught a lecture class with sections, I certainly gave my TAs a high degree of freedom, but equally I visited their classes, told them what they were doing wrong, what they ought to teach each week, and how to do it. There's no issue of academic freedom involved in this.

To me, the fact that a freshman comp curriculum revision aroused so much union-style activism among graduate students -- who, after all, will only be teaching this class a few times before moving on (hopefully) to a job -- suggests that there are other frustrations and problems at work here.

[Less anonymous with each post]

P,

I admit, it's hard to defend oneself against such vague accusations. How is this for a defense: no one was bullied. Until you produce something more concrete, that is the only possible defense.

Where do I generalize Writing Studies students views? Seriously, where did you get that?

I'd also be curious to know how Debbie's post is a critique of a "deployment of 'academic freedom'." Are you implying that I bullied people by asserting a belief in academic freedom? Interesting, go on...

You saying that a specific example is not an academic freedom issue is stating an opinion--a poorly supported opinion--not a fact. Put differently, it doesn't matter how many times you repeat your definition of academic freedom, you still have to deal with people who define it differently. And your TA example is apples and oranges unless you're prepared to turn all rhet instructors into the Rhet Director's TAs. Does that include NTTs? Will the students be filling out ICES forms evaluating the Rhet Director? Can I defer all student complaints to the real teacher?

No one has claimed they "should be able to teach whatever curriculum we want in any setting." My understanding is that "outcomes" will be established and I assume there are many ways to reach those outcomes. No disagreement there (though I appreciate your effort to make it look like there is one).

Ultimately, I don't know if you're one of the students who feels like you were bullied or if you've heard about it from someone who feels that way. If you are the former, maybe we should talk, because I think there has been some misunderstanding. If you are the latter, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. As far as I know, no one was ever called a sellout (I'm not even sure what that would mean) and no one was bullied. Overall, your view of what happened appears skewed and patently inaccurate.

[jbs]

Does the faculty union have a collective bargaining agreement (i.e., contract) with the university that defines academic freedom, and does this include graduate students? I've had some experience with this in the state of FL (where I teach) as my university's contract enforcement chair, a member of the bargaining committee, and, most recently, a member of the statewide committee that decides which cases the union will support for arbitration. Although, admittedly, I don't know all of the specifics of the Illinios Rhet 105 case, I would be shocked if academic freedom were at issue here in any legal sense. I'm inclined to agree with the earlier post that raising academic freedom in this case threatens to undermine more pressing, legitimate cases.

[jenny]

I want to print this out and hang it on my office door: "Faculty who tippy-toe around graduate students for fear of being seen as "uncool" are neither respecting them nor are they doing them any favors."

So very, very true. Oh my gods, so true.

[AnonII]

Faculty and grads who keep controversies alive after they have been resolved, and who maliciously snark on public forums are doing neither themselves nor their institutions any favors! Nor is it 'uncool' for faculty to acknowledge and respect the fact that their students might have opinions that differ from their own. Seriously-- what grad or faculty member wants a student-teacher relationship defined by one-way communication that is designed to produce little automatons with no ability to think for themselves? Well, I can think of a few, but for the most part, no one wants to work with them!

Seriously-- this issue was resolved without bloodshed last week, and really ought to be dropped. I am sick of coming to campus and having to hear about more snarking and half-truths floating around both the department and the internet. If being professional and collegial means subjecting an entire department as well as whoever trolls by this blog to what is turning into a feud between just a few people (although it initially involved a lot more than that) who apparently have nothing better to do, then it isn't just the structure of the rhetoric program that needs overhauling!

Neither the faculty, nor the grads, nor the English department of the University of Illinois is coming off well here-- if you want to have an open dialogue, then have it within the department itself, set specific guidelines for discussion, and don't air your dirty laundry for everyone to see. Sheesh!

[dhawhee]

As it happens, the English Department at the University of Illinois has a long and storied tradition of airing its dirty laundry. In any case, anonII, you make some good points, and they are mostly why I have pulled back from the conversation here.

[Z]

Maybe Rick will write a novel about it?